Cue the 1990s. After years of focus groups, surveys, and listening to their customer base, Ford unveils the Explorer, and the truck is an instant success. More room than a sedan, 4x4 go anywhere performance, and aggressive bulldog looks. Other brands soon follow, and by the end of the decade Americans are fleeing their Geos and jumping into the loving embrace of the SUV craze. Rather than blazing trails, the SUVs were found in slightly more pedestrian places, parking lots at shopping malls and drive-thrus. Considered safer and more convenient, your SUV could swallow a whole load of groceries from Costco and still have room for the little-league team. Drunk driver in the oncoming lane? Keep on truckin' and run right over their puny little hatchback! Sure, pit-stops at the gas station were frequent, but a full tank of dino-juice could be had for twenty bucks. Life was good.
Fast forward to the 2008 gas crisis. Five dollars for a gallon was only the beginning of the end, newspapers told us. No longer was the Grand SuburbanExcursion en vogue. The market was in a panic and people couldn't abandon their trusty SUVs fast enough. Used car lots were piled high with studded tires and running boards as customers exchanged for hybrid gas-electric cars, promising upwards of 60 miles per gallon. Driving a Geo was socially acceptable again. However, as prices at the pump momentarily shrunk, consumers began to get fed up with their vehicles. Hybrids don't have 17 cup-holders and room for a spare set of tires. And the fracas begins again.
Worldwide the phenomenon is evident, but most blatantly in the United States: We're obsessed with big. Big everything. Big hair, big sodas, big TVs. Our motto is "bigger is better." Even when we don't realize it, we want bigger. Every time a car is redesigned, one of the first points made by the talking heads is "XX% more legroom than last year's model!" Nobody ever stops to think, however, that last year's model had a perfectly acceptable amount of legroom. And if last year's model had such minuscule dimensions, how did anyone even manage to fit into the one from five years ago? Clearly they must have been living in the dark ages. To put into perspective our super sizing habits, cars have grown up entire size classes; the Honda Civic, America's most popular "compact"car, is now larger than the Accord, Honda's full-size family sedan, was fifteen years ago.
While the ongoing oil crisis is draining the economy of precious money, and we're using all of our resources to maximize efficiency, the buying public is being brainwashed into thinking they need all this extra space. Wake up! We don't! Every extra inch added to a vehicle increases its weight by approximately one hundred pounds. By shrinking our cars back to 'just right' sizes, mileage could easily be improved. Added bonuses also include: lower costs and more room on streets for parking and maneuvering.
A phenomenon seen today that's confounding marketing teams is "nameplate grow-up."As cars traditionally seen as compact mature in size and price, a new crop of legitimate compact cars must replace them. For example, slotting below the Civic now is the Honda Fit. The Civic is now the size of the prior Accord, and the Accord has grown even larger. In ten years, another new car must debut to replace the Fit, which will undoubtedly grow in size, and the whole chain will move up again.
Reducing our emissions and becoming more eco-friendly does not lie in new technologies or refraining from using our vehicles, it is in reassessing our needs and buying accordingly. A commuter in snowy climates would do fine in an all-wheel-drive sedan or using snow tires. Mothers will find more minivans more comfortable to drive. Insecure men would probably get more enjoyment out of a sports car.
Gas prices should not regulate buying preferences. Likewise, unchecked growth in the industry is bad for resources and not necessary to appease consumers. Next time a car is introduced, it would be nice to hear "Legroom has decreased to an amount suited for normal people."
And besides, I hear Honda is running out of names.
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